


No One To Hold Onto

by chemicalconcerto



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, F/M, Not Canon Compliant - The Raven King, Written Pre-The Raven King
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2019-10-10 13:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17426573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chemicalconcerto/pseuds/chemicalconcerto
Summary: Tumblr prompt: Surprise me with a Noah and Blue that will literally tear my frickin heart out.





	No One To Hold Onto

**Author's Note:**

> Written before The Raven King came out.

Blue Sargent goes to college because Richard Campbell Gansey III loved her.  She hates that it’s on his money but she knows where his heart was when he left the tuition to her.  And really, she  _wants_  to go.

When she comes back from California, she’s browner than ever and she feels at least more well-informed, if not necessarily smarter.

300 Fox Way is a hive of activity as usual, but this time it’s a welcome home party and she has to pretend she isn’t tearing up over her aunts and cousins and half-cousins and second cousins cheering.  Mr. Gray’s shoulder is a suitable handkerchief because he hugs her for a long time.  She thinks eventually she will be able to call him Dad.

Later, she bikes past Monmouth.  It stands empty, a ruin again, panes of glass broken out everywhere.  Whoever owns it now doesn’t care.  She leaves her bike in the grass and takes the stairs.  The door is open and there is a bird nesting somewhere in the rafters.

Blue tilts her head back.  “Chainsaw?”

The bird doesn’t answer.  Not Chainsaw.  Probably a pigeon.

_“You’re back.”_

The voice startles Blue.  She whirls in a circle but no one is there.  Had the voice even been real?

_“Blue.”_

There it is again, so gentle, so subtle.  Blue knows it now.  Tears well in her eyes, horrible hot ones that burn all the way up.

“Hi, Noah.”

There he is, in the doorway of his old room.  He’s almost formless now, with no one to hold onto.  Everything about him seems to slump to the left, like that side of his body has become to heavy to maintain a fully upright position anymore.

Noah is a terrifying and heartbreaking thing.  His eyes are dark hollows now, all the color washed out of him.  Blue can no longer make out the Aglionby crest on his sweater.  She reaches for him.  He reaches for her.  Their hands almost touch, and then his fingers pass through her palm and out the other side.  He isn’t just insubstantial, he’s almost nonexistent.

Blue says, “I missed you.”

Noah says,  _“I loved you.  As much as I could love.”_

Blue says, “I’m so sorry.”

Noah says,  _“He says hi.”_

Blue is alone in the dark room.


End file.
